


An Unexpected Holiday

by avi17



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because I wanted it to exist and as far as I know it doesn't, But not entirely silly, Chanukah Fic, F/M, Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Dwarves, Jewish Holidays, Just mostly, M/M, silliness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:51:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2793788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avi17/pseuds/avi17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo Baggins is invited to spend a very eventful Chanukah with his Jewish boyfriend Thorin and Thorin's large and rather interesting clan of relatives.  Cue eight nights of food, gifts, games, general mayhem and disaster (they are still our dear dwarves, after all), but most importantly, family and love.  (Modern AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Candles

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2014 Chanukah Fan Fest! http://antisemitisminfandoms.tumblr.com/post/103073699457/the-2014-5775-chanukah-fan-fest
> 
> The story behind this is fairly simple- Tolkien has said before that he has partly based his dwarves and their culture on Jews. I am all for discussing the both interesting and potentially unfortunate implications of this, but I can't help but notice that there's some fun to be had with it too that no one seems to take advantage of. Specifically, it bugs me that in nearly every holiday-themed modern AU fic, the dwarf gang always celebrates Christmas (and therefore are coded as Christian/of Christian upbringing).
> 
> I wanted Jewish dwarves who celebrate Chanukah! So dammit, I am going to write it. XD I had originally intended to post a chapter per night starting the 16th, but real life already made that impossible. So I'm aiming to be done by the end of this Chanukah (the 24th), but realistically by the end of this year.
> 
> (See the end for some more notes on how I intend to portray the characters and customs in this fic)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

"I'm just...a bit nervous, is all," Bilbo Baggins mumbled, half-drowned out by the noise of the road.

The driver of the car, a man with thick, clean-cut dark hair, a sharp nose, and piercingly blue eyes, raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Thorin..." Bilbo pursed his lips, then sighed. "You know I'm grateful for the invitation, of course. But I just feel so...uneducated, about all of this. It'll be a miracle if I don't make an arse of myself with your family.

As it was, Bilbo Baggins hated to feel uneducated about anything. He supposed that it was a side-effect of being a professor (and a lifelong scholar, whose degrees piled up almost as quickly as the keepsakes in his little house). Considering that, it had turned out to be a bit of an unanticipated adventure to begin getting serious with the terribly attractive man he'd been set up with on yet another blind date (still single in his forties, he attracted a lot of those), and end up offhandly discovering that he was Jewish. Not that Bilbo minded in the slightest, and Thorin had been quick to assure him that he didn't mind them not matching up in that particular area either. It was just that Bilbo had grown up and taught in the same small, rather homogenous community for his entire life, and was more than a little conscious that Thorin was the first Jewish person he had ever actually gotten to know.

After four months of dating, winter had come, and Bilbo had been more than a little shocked to receive a last-minute invitation to spend the holidays with Thorin's family. Truthfully, he was grateful. He had been dithering unhappily over what to do for Christmas- he had no lack of relations, but things at home weren't quite the same with his parents gone, and any reason to avoid the Sackville-Bagginses was a good one to him. And he was more than willing to meet Thorin's family, despite how early it was. He had a _very_ good feeling about this one. Nonetheless, the invitation had been so sudden that he had nearly refused.

However, another side-effect of being a professor was that he actually had a few weeks of vacation through December, so he would have had to come up with a lie to turn down Thorin's invitation, and he wasn't that sort of person, thank you very much (at least, with anyone but certain relatives of his own). So, he had thrown together a suitcase and set off in the car with Thorin to celebrate his first Chanukah.

Thorin chuckled, with the gently teasing smile that Bilbo had grown fond of remarkably quickly. "They will love you," he said for the tenth time.

As if on cue, they turned into the driveway of a modestly large brick house, with deep blue curtains visible in the windows. Thorin parked behind a slightly beat-up minivan, and when Bilbo opened the window, he heard the faint barking of a dog from the fenced-in back yard. Slinging his almost comically oversized travel bag over his shoulder, Bilbo anxiously smoothed his flyaway curly hair and followed Thorin up the path to the door.

Thorin squeezed his shoulder briefly and knocked, and almost immediately the door opened.

Bilbo blinked. For a split second he had the bizarre notion that Thorin had neglected to tell him that he had a twin. But no, this woman's features were younger by a fair amount, and softer (though not by much), her hair long and dark and without the grey that had begun to creep into Thorin's. She also smiled much more readily than Thorin, and Bilbo found himself on the receiving end of a cheerful handshake.

"It's wonderful to finally meet you, Bilbo." She smirked, suddenly looking _very_ much like her brother. "I hope my brother didn't manage to get _too_ lost on the way."

Bilbo found her immediately likeable, and smirked back. "Only for about a half-hour."

Thorin made a grumbling noise of protest, before pulling his sister into a tight embrace, which she laughingly returned. "I've missed you too, Thorin."

" _Dis_ ," he smiled, face half-buried in her prodigious fall of hair. Dislodging herself from her brother, Dis called over her shoulder, "Fili! Kili! Stop messing with the dog and come in here!"

The back door slid open, and two teenage boys tumbled in with a white, madly yapping mutt running around their heels. The slightly taller of the two (and the one Bilbo assumed was older) had a wide grin and blonde hair twisted into a messy bun. The shorter was just as merry-faced as his brother, with dark eyes almost hidden by an unruly chin-length mop.

"Mister Boggins!" the younger one crowed, dragging Bilbo into a mildly shocking and very enthusiastic hug. "Uncle Thorin's told us all about you!"

Patting the boy on the shoulder (both to return the hug and to try to communicate that he was squeezing awfully tight), Bilbo wheezed, "I-it's Baggins, but it's lovely to meet you too."

As the dark-haired boy (Kili? Bilbo couldn't remember which was which) released his accidental vicegrip, the older one frowned. "Isn't it Professor Boggins, though? Or doctor, or something?  That's what Uncle Thorin said."

"BAG-gins," Bilbo corrected again. "But please just call me Bilbo. And no, I'm not a doctor, at least not yet."

Dis elbowed her older son in the side and hissed, "Fili, take his bag!" As the smaller man (shorter than either of Thorin's nephews, he noted only a little sourly) gratefully handed over the heavy duffel, she turned back to him. "I'm sorry about them. They're good boys, but their manners are a little lacking."

Bilbo laughed and half-jokingly replied. "There's a reason I don't teach teenagers."

Another bark sounded from near his feet, and Bilbo looked down for the first time at the dog. It looked to be mostly pit bull, and was a rather hideous thing, covered in scars and missing bits of fur and part of an ear. Nonetheless, it looked happy enough to see him, and Kili grinned.

"This is Azog," he said, then snorted. "Azog 'the defiler'."

Bilbo opened his mouth to ask why they would call a dog such a thing, but he learned the reason rather up-close and personal as Azog began enthusiastically humping his leg. Kili roared with laughter, and Dis looked to be trying very hard not to join in. On the other hand, Thorin looked flatly unamused, muttering something about "that fucking dog" before chasing off both dog and nephew and leading Bilbo inside.

Bilbo's immediate impression of the house was that two teenage boys definitely lived there. It wasn't dirty, but definitely cluttered, with papers that looked like homework spread all over the table and a pile of video games in front of the television. One unusual object caught his eye- a nine-pronged candelabra sitting on the mantle above the fireplace. It looked well-cared-for, but very old. He turned to Thorin.

"Is that your menorah, then?" Thorin nodded with another of his soft smiles, and Bilbo thanked whoever was listening that he'd managed to remember _something_.

"We light the first candle at sundown tonight," Thorin explained, glancing out the window. "It's about that time, actually."

Before Bilbo could ask anything else, Kili's voice piped up from the living room. "Can we do it, mum? I promise we'll be careful!"

Dis poked out from the kitchen, holding a spoon and a bag of carrots and wearing a cautious frown. She exchanged a significant look with Thorin, who gave a tiny shrug, and sighed. "All right, I suppose you ought to be old enough by now. But be _very_ careful!"

For a moment, Bilbo felt his nervousness ebb away. He hadn't offended anyone yet, and Thorin's arm around his shoulders was very warm. His eyes slid closed as he relaxed, and it had just occurred to him to ask Dis if she wanted help making dinner when he heard a muffled argument from the living room.

"You're supposed to light the other candle with this one, not the match-"

"I know what I'm doing, Fili-"

Suddenly, Azog let out an ear-splitting yap, fully startling the two lovers out of their moment. There was a loud thud, a string of curses, more barking, and then-

" _MUM_!"

Bilbo and Thorin ran into the living room to discover Fili and Kili looking frantic, the menorah on the floor, and a patch of the carpet on fire.

As a furious Dis doused half the floor and a bit of the dog with the fire extinguisher and the boys apologized profusely, the two of them exchanged a look- Bilbo's wide-eyed, Thorin's a cross between exasperated and amused, and not nearly as surprised as it ought to have been. Bilbo began to suspect it was going to be quite a week indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I just wanted to specify before this really gets going where I am specifically coming from on this. I intend to write the dwarves something like my own family. We are Jewish ethnically and culturally, but we are NOT very religious, and we get less and less so with each generation (contributed to both by the times and by some interfaith marriages XD). Our traditions are important to us, but they are just that- traditions, not really religious observances. I do not claim to speak or write for all Jews, and while I would love to see a similar fic focusing more on the religious aspects of the holiday, I don't feel qualified to write it as I don't consider myself religiously Jewish, nor would I want to. This exists because I love Chanukah and I wanted to write some Jewish dwarves like my family celebrating it (in their own disastrous way, of course XD).
> 
> Also, I am guessing most everyone knows what a menorah is, but as we get into it, anything I think the audience might be unfamiliar with I will most likely define/explain down here in the notes. If you celebrate Chanukah or understand the references, that's awesome and feel free to ignore it, but I've got plenty of friends who don't know much of anything about it and I would rather be overly explanatory than exclude or confuse people.
> 
> (Another quick note- due to this being a modern AU and to my keyboard being a shit, I will be spelling the characters' names without accents. Only for this fic, I promise. XD)


	2. Food

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So obviously this being done by New Years is no longer a thing- real life happened. XD But I do still intend to keep working on it with whatever time I have. Thank you so much to everyone for their positive responses to the premise and the fic so far! :)

"M'wife's actually not Jewish," the large man bent over the stove chuckled. "She grew up Catholic. Our family was surprised, hers was-"

"Royally pissed off?" A cheerful voice supplied from the kitchen table.

"Somethin' like that. Careful, the oil likes to spatter, don't get your face too close in there!"

Bilbo leaned back a bit from where he was leaning around the man (whose name, he had learned that morning, was Bombur)'s arm. Bombur was carefully spooning a potato-based batter he had made into a cast-iron pan full of sizzling oil, and Bilbo was quite fascinated. He loved both food and cooking it (and considered himself something of an expert on both), so encountering entirely new foods was quite a treat. Bombur had already slipped him the recipe, and he was in the middle of contemplating whether he could learn to make them for Thorin next year when the voice from the table spoke up again.

"They calmed down a bit once they realized what a good guy Bom is," he explained. He- Bofur, he'd said- had an effusively cheerful face and messy brown hair that he had pulled into a ponytail beneath one of those (Bilbo thought) goofy hats with flaps that hung over the wearer's ears. He smelled faintly of motor oil and smoke and had taken to Bilbo immediately, chatting with him amicably for most of the afternoon while Thorin and Dis ran errands. "A couple o' cute grandkids didn't hurt things either."

Curious, Bilbo turned back to Bombur, who was beginning to flip over the now-golden potato pancakes. "How many children do you have?"

Bombur colored a bit pink under his shaggy red hair. "Five."

"Five!" Bilbo exclaimed, shocked- Bombur had to be ten years younger than him, if not fifteen. Bofur laughed as his brother turned redder.

"Five, aye. They were high school sweethearts, and bless 'em, they didn't waste a bit o' time after the wedding!" Bofur winked, but Bilbo could tell the teasing was good-natured, and Bombur was smiling despite his persisting blush.

"They'll all be over this weekend, right now they're still in school. It's tough," he admitted, beginning to look genuinely embarrassed as he lifted the latkes one by one from the pan with a spatula and set them on a paper towel. "Bo has to help us out sometimes, but we get by."

Bofur frowned, the first one that Bilbo had seen on his face since they had met. "I've told yeh a hundred times not to worry 'bout that."

"And what about you?" Bilbo interjected quickly, turning back to where Bofur was lounging at the table. "Are you married?"

"Nope," Bofur's grin returned, but he said nothing more about it.

At that moment, Fili and Kili burst into the kitchen, bickering loudly about something Bilbo found rather incomprehensible (though he gleaned enough from the terms they used that it was probably a video game). Kili's face lit up at the growing pile of latkes on the counter, and he made a poor attempt to sneak over and reach under Bombur's elbow and swipe one. He received a swat to the fingers with the spatula for his efforts, along with a rather spectacular glare from the cook.

"Don't even think about it 'til I'm done! Your mum'll have my head if I let you ruin your appetites for supper!"

Fili was poking around in the fridge, and Kili slunk over to join him, the two of them whispering to each other and digging around in the shelves. Bilbo, meanwhile, made his way over to the table to sit with Bofur and pick up a book he'd abandoned before lunch. Bofur raised an eyebrow at him, his mustache quirking upwards in an amused smile (Bilbo had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't the reading type), and pulled out an ancient-looking cell phone, the kind that still flipped open. For a good five minutes it was relatively quiet, with only the sizzling of oil and the faint beeping of Bofur texting someone to accompany Bilbo's reading. Inevitably, this didn't last long, and he was startled rather thoroughly by Fili dropping a large glass jar onto the table in front of him.

"So, Uncle Bilbo," Kili began with a grin (and oh, it was "uncle Bilbo" on the second day of knowing them, what _had_ he gotten himself into?), "you said you wanted to learn more about Jewish foods, right?"

Well yes, he _had_ said that, hadn't he? And he had certainly never seen anything like the jar sitting in front of him, full of pale, odd-looking round cakes of something and labelled "gefilte fish." Out of nowhere, Fili also produced a plate and a fork. Their matching grins were a bit unsettling.

"We promise you'll like it!" Kili insisted, so Bilbo unscrewed the top and examined the jar's contents. The fish cakes appeared to be packed in some kind of jelly, which was certainly a bit odd. But Bilbo was an adventurous fellow (if only when it came to food), so he fished one out with a fork and plopped it onto the plate. He surveyed the room for a moment- Bombur was still flipping latkes, and Bofur was smiling faintly at his phone, so it seemed he would be getting no help from either of them. Fili and Kili, on the other hand, were looking at him with far, far too much excitement for anyone who was merely introducing a friend to a new kind of food. Kili was practically bouncing on his heels. Tentatively, he took a small bite.

Oh- perhaps he had misjudged the boys' motivations after all. It was actually quite good- cold, yes, and the texture was a bit unusual, but the flavor was a surprisingly pleasant combination of sweetness, savory fish, and a bit of pepper. And he was awfully hungry, considering that lunch was quite a few hours ago and he had spent the last twenty minutes smelling frying potatoes. He cut off a larger bite and was just closing his mouth around it with a satisfied noise when he caught the boys' expressions. Both of their mouths were gaping open- Fili's snapped shut when he realized he was being watched, but Kili appeared to be having trouble re-hinging his jaw and looked more than a bit dumbfounded.

"I-it's great, right Uncle Bilbo?" Fili managed to stammer, doing a poor job of not looking entirely grossed out.

Bilbo was just about to give them a piece of his mind for what they had obviously intended to be a prank when he heard the front door open and Dis' yell of "We're home!" Laden with groceries, she and Thorin tramped into the kitchen, shaking snow from their hair and heavy coats. Dis' eyes brightened when she saw the increasingly heaping plate of latkes, and she managed to redistribute her armful of bags enough to steal one (which, unlike with the boys, Bombur did nothing to prevent). At the same moment, Thorin caught sight of Bilbo at the table and the half-eaten food in front of him. He paled considerably and nearly dropped his grocery bags.

" _Fili! Kili!_ To your rooms _now!_ " he bellowed at his nephews. To Fili's credit, he didn't even try to deny his involvement, but Kili grinned sheepishly and stammered, "We were just trying to- uh- expand his cultural horizons?" Thorin made a noise at them that was nearly a _growl_ (which Bilbo mentally catalogued for later consideration) and they all but ran down the hallway and out of sight. Thorin turned back to Bilbo, looking so genuinely horrified that he had to put effort into not starting to laugh.

"I am _so_ sorry about them, Bilbo, they just-" he began, and Bilbo couldn't help it anymore, the laughter bubbling up in great gasps and giggles that shook his sweater-clad shoulders. At this point, the others who had witnessed the whole thing were watching, and Bofur was cracking up too, Bombur snickering quietly behind his hand.

"Thorin, you silly lump, you needn't be so worried. It's actually rather good."

Thorin's eyes widened. "You _like_ it?"

"Here, gimme a bite o' that," Bofur cut in, swiping a piece of the fish and popping it into his mouth with his fingers. Bilbo smiled guilelessly up at Thorin, cutting off another bite with his fork (at least one of them had to have manners) and holding it up to his partner.

"Would you like some?"

He had never before seen Thorin turn quite that shade of green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for food- latkes are probably the best-known Chanukah-specific food. They are potato pancakes, fried in oil to commemorate the miracle of the oil burning for eight nights (more on that later XD). They are usually served with applesauce or sour cream, and they are quite wonderful.
> 
> Gefilte fish is not a Chanukah-specific food, but it's the type of thing that every Jewish family seems to inevitably have buried somewhere in the back of their fridge. You can make it from scratch, but the kind I mostly see around is the kind from a jar. They are cakes of ground, seasoned whitefish packed in either broth or jelly, and seem to be the type of food that you either love or absolutely hate. I think it should be pretty apparent which members of Thorin's family are which. ;P
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I hope to get the next update out a little quicker!


End file.
